nep-dem 2022-11-28 papers

on Demographic Economics

Issue of 2022‒11‒28
two papers chosen by
Héctor Pifarré i Arolas
University of Wisconsin

Understanding Geographic Disparities in Mortality By Jason Fletcher; Hans G. Schwarz; Michal Engelman; Norman Johnson; Jahn Hakes; Alberto Palloni
Should Mothers Work? How Perceptions of the Social Norm Affect Individual Attitudes Toward Work in the U.S. By Patricia Cortés; Gizem Koşar; Jessica Pan; Basit Zafar

Understanding Geographic Disparities in Mortality

By:	Jason Fletcher; Hans G. Schwarz; Michal Engelman; Norman Johnson; Jahn Hakes; Alberto Palloni
Abstract:	A rich literature shows that early life conditions shape later life outcomes, including health and migration events. However, analyses of geographic disparities in mortality outcomes focus almost exclusively on contemporaneously measured geographic place (e.g., state of residence at death), thereby potentially conflating the role of early life conditions, migration patterns, and effects of destinations. We use the newly available Mortality Disparities in American Communities (MDAC) dataset, which links respondents in the 2008 ACS to official death records and estimate consequential differences by method of aggregation; the mean absolute deviation of the difference in life expectancy at age 50 measured by state of birth versus state of residence is 0.58 (0.50) years for men and 0.40 (0.29) years for women. These differences are also spatially clustered, and we show that regional inequality in life expectancy is higher based on life expectancies by state of birth, implying that interstate migration mitigates baseline geographical inequality in mortality outcomes. Finally, we assess how state-specific features of in-migration, out-migration, and non-migration together shape measures of mortality disparities by state (of residence), further demonstrating the difficulty of clearly interpreting these widely used measures.
JEL:	I14 J0
Date:	2022–10
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30572&r=dem

Should Mothers Work? How Perceptions of the Social Norm Affect Individual Attitudes Toward Work in the U.S.

By:	Patricia Cortés; Gizem Koşar; Jessica Pan; Basit Zafar
Abstract:	We study how peer beliefs shape individual attitudes toward maternal labor supply using realistic hypothetical scenarios that elicit recommendations on the labor supply choices of a mother with a young child and an information treatment embedded within representative surveys. Across the scenarios, we find that individuals systematically overestimate the extent of gender conservativeness of the people around them. Exposure to information on peer beliefs leads to a shift in recommendations, driven largely by information-based belief updating. The information treatment also increases (intended and actual) donations to a non-profit organization advocating for women in the workplace.
JEL:	J13 J16 J20 J22
Date:	2022–10
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30606&r=dem

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